Just Later
by TriedItAtHome
Summary: "Everybody knows that Davey's been working himself just near death for more credits than he needs, ever, just to graduate early. Everybody knows how tired he is, how many cups of coffee he needs daily because he hardly ever sleeps at night. Well, everybody knows except Jack." Javid, high school AU in which Crutchie is wise, Davey is leaving and, very unwisely, doesn't tell Jack.


_Hey, look, I wrote no-sleep-at-all-last-night-despite-my-best-intentions Javid! Except for... it's Javey. Cause apparently he's not David in the musical, he's Davey. Okay. Whatever, Disney Theatrical. Anyways, I had fun with this one, and there's at least one more Javey on the way (you know what, screw this, I'm still calling it Javid I don't care about his name at this point except for I really, really do) and then after that there should be some Jack/Crutchie. Which is Crack, their shipname, by the way, for when you see that if you didn't already know. So, read and enjoy!  
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_(This is a disclaimer: They ain't mine.)_

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><p><strong>Just Later<strong>

Everybody knows that Davey wants to graduate early. He's perfectly capable of it. Everybody knows that he's been taking courses over summer, getting tutors after school, working hard to earn more credits than he needs for a lifetime. Everybody knows how tired he is. Everybody knows how much help he could really use, and everybody knows that he won't accept it when they offer, because everybody knows that he wants to do this on his own. Well, everybody knows except for Jack, that is.

Nobody but Crutchie really understands why, though. There's nothing about Jack that escapes Crutchie's notice, that's just how it's always been with them. And because of this, and that Davey's become the new best friend (he's not bothered by that, really, because he knows Jack wouldn't ever let Davey _replace_ him or their friendship), Crutchie starts to notice things about Davey, too.

Like how he forces himself to sit up straighter when Jack walks into a room, makes himself smile and bites his frequent yawns off whenever Jack looks at him.

Crutchie had asked him about it once.

_"Crutch, you can't tell him!" he said._

_"I know. You told us all not to, and I wouldn't just disregard a promise like that. I just wanna know why, is all."_

_"He'd worry too much," Davey explained. "He doesn't need more to worry about. He'd try to help, too, and you know that I don't want it and that he really needs to work on helping himself first."_

That had been a while ago, that discussion, before Jack had gotten moved to a better foster family, though it's still true that Jack has a habit of looking after his friends more than himself. Crutchie and the rest of the guys know that Davey's asked them not to tell Jack, and they respect his wishes. All of them, each and every one, knows it's not a good idea and that one day this will blow back in his face - they tell him so, a lot, almost every day - but they respect his wishes.

So when Davey practically skips up to the statue they all gather around every morning before the school's gates open, waving a letter in his hand like a flag, they know that day has come.

"Full scholarship!" he shouts, holding the letter on either side and turning in circles until Mush grabs it out of his hands and reads it aloud to the group.

"'Congratulations! I am pleased to advise that you have been granted formal admission to Yale University on a full scholarship from your donor, Mr. Denton. This offer attests to your hard work and dedication to your studies in order to graduate one year early from your high school.'"

Shouts and cheers ring out around him, hands slap his back and arms wrap around him in rough, congratulatory hugs.

He does not notice Jack pull Racetrack aside in the back.

"Race, what's goin' on here?"

Race laughs. "Davey's just gotten himself a full scholarship to Yale, Jackie! Don't know how you didn't hear Mush shoutin' it like a human megaphone."

"Yeah, I did but... How?"

Race suddenly clams up and falls silent for just a second, but then just blurts everything out when Jack gives him a warning look. "He didn't want us to tell you earlier, thought you would worry too much. We all told him it was a bad idea, that he should have told you and just asked you not to try and -"

"Race."

"He's been takin' extra classes for a while now, to get extra credit. He's been going to summer school and stuff, and staying up studying and everything, but he wouldn't let us help him. We tried, because we knew he was going to just about kill himself trying to get this done. But he's done it, Jackie! He's done it... Jack?"

The gates open, and Jack turns to enter the building just as quickly as he can. But as soon as he faces the school, he finds Davey is right in front of him, the letter somewhere among the crowd of guys trying to read over it for proof, and he's wearing an expression that's something scared and nervous and far too excited for Jack's liking.

And he really looks at him, for the first time in months, probably years. He notices, finally, the dark circles and the bags that take up all remaining space under his eyes, so old that they've become scaly-looking. His nails are bitten. His bottom lip has been chewed up to eternity. Despite his excitement, he stoops. He shuffles when he walks, and it seems that he would lift his feet if he could, that he's really trying to but he just can't.

He can't believe he hasn't seen it before now, how beat-down and bone-tired Davey really is, how hard he's been working to hide it. But Jack should have noticed, no matter how good his disguise was.

"Jack, I -" Davey starts.

But Jack brushes past him, shoulders him out of the way.

Davey turns to Racetrack, who's looking incredibly guilty, something not often known to find its way across his features.

"You _told_ him?!"

"Well, I figured since he's heard Mush reading the letter you wouldn't mind now... Okay. I'm sorry. You're right, I shouldn't have told him, it was your information to share, not mine, I apologize..."

Davey could care less that Racetrack acts like a kicked puppy every time he sees him, just that Jack avoids him like the plague all day long. It's not until the very end of the day that Davey manages to catch him as he's walking out of his last class.

He follows him to his locker as Jack packs his bag up, talking the whole way.

"Jack, I'm sorry I didn't tell you and that I told the guys not to. It's just that I started doing all this extra work in freshman year, and that's around the time you started having all those problems with that family, and if there was anybody's help I would have asked for it would have been yours, please understand that, that's a compliment because you know I never ask for help, but I just wanted to make sure that you were doing okay and I didn't want to put any more weight on your shoulders or add to your stress or anything -"

Jack closes his locker gently, spins the lock and just turns his head to look at him. That's when Davey gets it: he's sad. He's not angry at all, at least not right now. He's just sad.

"Why didn't you just trust me, Davey?"

"I trust you, I do!"

"Of _course_ I would have tried to help you. You're my best friend. And even if you didn't want my help, I would have given it anyway. Have you looked at yourself, Davey? You're an absolute mess."

"I am not!" he says indignantly.

"Yeah, you are!" His voice raises just a bit now, but not enough that anybody else in the hallways takes any notice. "All I would have wanted to do was tell you to go on bed on time, and bring you coffee in the morning and help you study when you needed it. Anything, so you wouldn't have had to do it all on your own. That's what best friends do, okay?"

And when Jack finishes his little speech, Davey discovers for the second time that day that the most hurt he thinks he'll ever feel is Jack Kelly breezing past him as if he no longer wants anything to do with him. Ever.

# # #

The day of Davey's early graduation comes, and his and Jack's hurting are the last thing on his mind. He and two other students are graduating a year early, one girl he knows and the other boy he doesn't. They use the school's auditorium, and over half the three quarters of the student body are there cheering, but Davey's friends, all of them, are most definitely whooping and hollering the loudest.

All of them, that is, except Jack.

Davey doesn't notice until afterwards, though, when he's met outside the auditorium by a deafening roar of the boys outside. He finds Crutchie in the crowd immediately.

"Hey, great job, Dave! The robe suits you!"

"Thanks for showing up, Crutch, it means a lot." He looks around once, then back at Crutchie. "Is Jack here?"

"Ahh..."

"Crutchie..."

He caves. "Told me to tell you had a prior engagement," he says quietly, ashamedly.

Davey reels back in surprise. "'A prior engagement'? Ha! He really expected me to buy -"

He's interrupted, however, when he finds himself being hoisted into the air on Bumlets's shoulders, a crowd of boys aiming to parade him down the street, all cheering too loud to hear anything over. He meets Crutchie's eyes once more in the crowd before he's lost.

_Talk to him_, he sees him mouth, and then he's gone.

Davey figures it'll be a while before he gets the chance to, if he chooses to at all.

# # #

He spends his next few days, most of the remainder of the week, shopping for supplies. He's managed to score his own dorm, albeit a small one, almost closet-sized, but he still figures it'll help him get more studying and work done if he's by himself. And this way, he doesn't have to worry about fitting any particular theme a roommate might one, which is an added bonus after sharing a room with Les for the past ten years.

He's laid everything out on the floor, all in different piles of neatly folded clothing and a backpack full of books - mostly textbooks, there's a lot of those - and a list of all the things he's going to need to buy once he's in Connecticut that he can't take on the train with him.

Yes, he's asking a train. Yes, he wanted to. No, he didn't entirely know why. He's always just romanticized the idea of speeding away down the tracks and looking out the window at the scenery flying by...

"Stationary," he remembers with a snap of his fingers, and leaves to go find it from the study. Because he's the kind of person who's not going to email - he'll text if it's short and urgent, sure - but is going to handwrite a two-page letter to each of them. When he has the time.

The window's open when he comes back into his room, and he's internally surprised that he notices this before he notices that Jack is sitting on his bed, staring at him.

"Hey, Davey," he says.

Davey's not really scared, or surprised at all that he's there. He just goes over to the window, where the thin summer curtains are fluttering on a warm summer wind. He holds them aside as he pulls the window back down and flips the lock, stares down at the fire escape just outside the pane.

"You'll let out all the cold air," he says quietly.

And Jack just absolutely blows up.

"You didn't tell me _anything_, Dave! All I would have wanted to do was help! Were you worried about me worrying about you too much, was that it? Because yeah, of course I would have worried about you, just as much as you worry about me." Davey feels him take a couple steps closer to him. "That's real hypocritical of you, to just go and act all noble by trying to take it all on your own shoulders and keep me from worrying about you when all you do is worry about me and the guys and act like the big mama duck. And now you're packing!" He can feel Jack breathing down his neck, but Davey represses the urge to shiver. "You were just gonna go and not say goodbye?"

He whirls around now, and yeah, Jack's standing right on top of him, almost. "Now _that's_ something to call hypocritical, not saying goodbye. You weren't even at my graduation, probably the most important moment of my life so far! Why should I have thought that you would even want to say goodbye if you weren't there to support me in the first place?"

Jack's hand is on the back of his neck and Jack's face is moving down towards him and then Jack's lips are covering his own and all Davey's senses are filled with just _Jack, Jack, Jack_. If he were able to do anything in this moment, he might have been able to smell Jack's usual acrylic/laundry soap/mowed grass smell that always kind of takes him by surprise and he might have noticed that Jack's eyes were open and looking right at him in the most impossibly scared and nervous and frustrated way. If he were able to do anything in this moment, he might have, most definitely would have, kissed him back.

Then he's pulling away. His other hand has somehow ended up on David's lower back, he doesn't know how, and it and the one on his neck linger for a while, just as Jack lingers and doesn't move away just quite yet. He's looking for a sign, waiting for David to do something other than stand there and look so (adorably) confused with his mouth hanging slightly open. He gets nothing, and so he finally lets go and exits the way he came.

Davey's fingers go up to lips, and he's not sure how long he stands there and tries to recall the feeling of kissing Jack Kelly before he realizes he would really, really like to go back in time and redo that moment.

He rushes to the window, once again left open from Jack's hasty escape, and he leans all the way out of it and looks down at the back alley below, hoping beyond hope that the scruffy teenage artist will still be there, waiting for him with just as much longing for more as Davey has building up.

But the alley is empty, and the setting sun behind him sets it into shadow.

# # #

He's managed to get everything he really needs into three bags - two duffels and a backpack. He stands at the train station with all these at his feet, ticket in one hand at his side and phone in the other. He's alone, having not wanted to see his over-emotional parents crying and waving as the train left the platform.

He recalls every one of the farewells he delivered individually to each of his friends with fondness, having gone to each of their houses/apartments and trading one last friendly conversation before they hugged/spit-shook goodbye. Specs, Racetrack, Romeo, Crutchie, Finch... All of them. Except Jack. Again.

And, again, he was drawn to the memory of his and Crutchie's last face-to-face exchange for a long time.

_He had this look on his face, a little smile that tipped a little over into the 'smirk' category. Like he knew something. He always knew something, though._

_"What is it, Crutch?"_

_He shook his a head and wiped the expression off. "No, it's nothing. Good luck in Connecticut, Dave. Come and visit all the time, and write when you can't, yeah?"_

He'd been too excited and nervous and happy and scared and sad that he didn't really press the subject at the time, instead just brushed it off as one of those Crutchie things.

But he's not stupid. Obviously: he's going to Yale on full scholarship, a whole _year_ early. And because he's not stupid, he figures that that specific "Crutchie thing" has to do with Jack. But because he's not stupid, he also doesn't let himself get his hopes up. At all. He pushes the thought away, out of his mind, like picking a bad grape off of a bunch.

Except not really.

He still has his thumb poised over the keyboard on his phone's screen, and above that keyboard are all his messages to one Jack Kelly, all of them from when they first met and exchanged numbers in middle school. And despite his not being stupid, he begins to type.

**I'm at platform 6 at the station on Dylman Street if you wanted to come and see me off**.

And he presses send. And right at the same time that he does, a message from Jack appears on the opposite side of the conversation:

**Turn around.**

He's standing by the automated sliding doors that go from the station inside to the platforms outside, beside the tracks. He's in his trademark blue jeans and ratty t-shirt that's got just a bit of sweat at the neckline and clings to the muscles of his upper arms and his stomach; the muscles he is in no way ashamed of and sees no reason to hide (Davey's often thought he should, if only to keep _him_ from swooning every time he sees him in one of those shirts). They just kind of stare at each other, neither really knowing what to do at first. But Jack's always been a pretty quick thinker in awkward situations.

**Hey**,

Davey sees pop up on his screen, and so:

**Hey**, he texts back.

Then they're both smiling like fools. Jack walks towards him, usual swagger and all at full swing, until he stands right in front of him, almost on top of him, just like before.

"You were really gonna leave without saying goodbye?" he says, and his tone is a little hurt but he can't stop smiling down at the boy who also can't stop smiling up at him. (It's really not that big a height difference, but Davey fears that Jack will forever remain taller and Jack rejoices in this fact.)

"You were really gonna _let_ me leave without saying goodbye?"

"Never."

They both move at the same time and they're kissing right there in the middle of the busy New York City train station. They could care less, both of them, if people are watching or judging because David gets that do-over he's been wishing for since yesterday and Jack finally, _finally_, gets to dismiss his thousands of doubts that Davey doesn't want this like he does. Because as they stand there and kiss and their hands roam over each other's bodies and their tongues invade each other's mouths and their teeth keep kind of scraping and their noses keep bumping and the world around them continues to turn and they don't (can't) notice... there are definitely no doubts.

They don't break apart until the train whistle makes them, though both want to keep on going forever and ever, need for oxygen be damned.

"You've still got to go, huh?" Jack asks. Yeah, he lets a little more hurt leak through than before.

Davey rubs a hand up and down his back, somehow pulling Jack even closer, and he forces himself to nod, too, just a little movement so he doesn't have to be afraid of ruining their last shared moment. "I'm sorry, Jack. I want to stay. But this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I can't put it on hold because I..." He trails off, and Jack smiles again. (Davey thinks it's the most beautiful thing in the world, not for the first time.)

"What was that? I didn't catch that."

"I wasn't going to say anything!" he insists.

"Come on, Davey." Jack yanks him up by the hands wrapped around his waist, so Davey's standing on his toes now and he couldn't possibly move away if he wanted to. "Tell me," Jack says in his ear.

Davey bends back so he can look in Jack's eyes, then goes forward again so their lips are just touching, just brushing against each other's when he whispers "I can't not go just because I love you."

He's pretty glad that Jack crashes them back together again because his face is flaming red, and _now_ he can blame it on a lack of oxygen (in the back of his mind, though, he thinks it's very unlikely that Jack would buy it).

"Love you too, Davey." Jack pries the slightly shorter boy off him, reluctantly, but finds every excuse to keep him close enough that he can still touch him. He doesn't need too many excuses. Davey's not complaining. The train trills again. "Go on, then."

"Okay. Bye, Jack."

He shakes his head vigorously. "Not goodbye. Just later. I'll see you soon, Davey. Good luck. You'll be great."

"Thanks. See you soon, Jack."

They kiss one last time, and Davey begins counting the seconds until he do it again the moment it ends. They wave as the train pulls away, and Davey pretends he's not about to cry. He pretends he doesn't notice that one tear that makes it's way down Jack's cheek. For everybody's sake.

_Not goodbye_, he keeps reminding himself as that stopwatch he's started ticks off lonely seconds inside his head. _Just later._


End file.
